Hacker News Reader

Comment by BurningFrog | Hacker News Reader

Thanks!

Any info on how much water, and if the gel "wears out"?

If you can grab drinking water out of the air, and wifi from the village Starlink, rural third world life can improve quite a bit!

View on HN

Sure that's a great idea, but at the rate we're going, first world will be needing this tech too in a not distant future.

California, New Mexico, and Utah would like some water now thank you. I don't know if you consider them "first world" or not.

California is easy: just cut down all the almond trees, that will buy a few decades of runway.

I was being more nuanced.

California should be the world's leading pioneer on desalinization, but nope. So maybe they can figure this out instead? (not holding my breath)

I was being reductive. They should be on the forefront of water management. Didn't the state government cancel a few very large desalination plants recently? After Lakes Powell and Meade and the Colorado River dry up and after the snow caps melt and while precipitation stays reduced and the aquifers dry up and sinkholes appear, what do you think will happen to California agriculture and Silicon Valley? The lush valley turns into desert. How times change ..

In the ice caps melt situation, I very much doubt that California will be alone in the needing of fresh water

Yikes, I meant to say the snow caps in the mountains. I've changed that now. But yeah, ice caps melting are really a question of when rather than if at this point sadly.

does California still have snow caps?

Last time I was there it did. But now, I guess not :(.

https://news3lv.com/news/local/lake-meads-source-hows-the-sn...

Not sure on the wearing out, but agreed - these developments are encouraging to say the least.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com